Best Exhibit of 2014

The Insistent Image: Recurrent Motifs in the Art of Shepard Fairey and Jasper Johns

Readers Pick

Few art exhibits take the art literally into the streets, and fewer still take it up to the rooftops. But that’s what happened last May during the Halsey’s exhibition of two contemporary superstars, street artist Shepard Fairey and painter and printmaker Jasper Johns. One of the major draws of the show was the long-buzzed-about series of pieces that Fairey created at spots around the peninsula: an installation in a King Street storefront window, and huge murals on the College of Charleston’s College Lodge, the side of Groucho’s Deli, the wall next to Butcher & Bee, and the Obey Giant face atop the Francis Marion Hotel, looking mournfully down upon Upper King’s nightlife (as we imagined). Fairey’s work inside the Halsey was nothing to sneeze at either — viewers wandered through an extensive collection of pieces, titled Power and Glory, that tackled climate change, the oil economy, and more.